Bruships 155: Last time answering naval history questions from the Brushack?

Preventing malaria kept more personnel healthy, protected people in camps, and reduced the burden of treating an avoidable disease.

It improved both fuel capacity and operational flexibility because the Buccaneer combined the larger pack with a highly maneuverable carrier aircraft.

Their influence would depend on whether armed forces treated them as specialist curiosities or as a new must-have capability that justified widespread adoption and imitation.

Its airframe could plausibly last that long, but British budget decisions would be more likely to end its service than a hard technical limit.

The answer argues that Britain would look like a much more robust global power, with the Falklands crisis likely altered and French carrier choices pulled into the comparison.

They would be localized defensive weapons rather than campaign-changing boats, but their quiet hulls could accelerate anti-submarine detection work such as towed arrays.

Yes. More navies would probably explore the system, though the exchange does not establish which would adopt it.

CVA-01 would still be a conventional catapult-and-arrestor carrier; a CL-84 successor could cover support roles, but Sea Kings would remain strong candidates for ASW and airborne early warning.

The ships would initially cover Atlantic and imperial requirements, then concentrate heavily in the Mediterranean once that theater opened.

28-knot R-class ships would force Queen Elizabeth upgrades, alter Jutland's battlecruiser fight, and reset British battle-line expectations.

The answer calls the sequence possible but unlikely because carrier service lives normally run three to four decades, pushing replacements into different political and budget windows.

Preserving five twin 15-inch turrets, armor, and roughly 28 knots would push the design toward about 40,000 tons, a much larger jump from the Iron Duke class.

The answer prioritizes long-range cruisers, battleships, torpedo boats, and submarines, with standardized ratios and defensive control of French waters and the Mediterranean.

The answer favors twelve active large carriers and proposes conventional reserve carriers to cover nuclear-carrier maintenance and wartime expansion.

Their existence would force the Washington Naval Treaty to be written around three 35,000-ton British carriers, making any later carrier limit dependent on the total British allowance.

The answer expects larger destroyers and leaders, more dual-purpose guns and torpedo investment, and pressure on small light cruisers whose advantage would shrink.

Not enough to justify the penalty: wartime submarines spent too much time on the surface, where a teardrop hull would reduce their handling and effectiveness.

Britain would design around Suez and available docking support, while Panama mattered less; the proposed draft and 90-aircraft figure also require more careful design assumptions.

A hit might flood one space, but sinking the frigate requires damage in the right location and a hole large enough to overwhelm subdivision and pumps; a bazooka is probably insufficient.

They would probably respond, but funding, observation time, and the pace of design work would determine whether matching ships appeared quickly or years later.

The Royal Navy liked Eagle's hangar height and probably would copy it, but a no-treaty world changes carrier development more broadly.

Britain used destroyer hulls for amphibious command and transport tasks, but was less inclined to create a comfortable, specialized APD-style conversion.

The taller structure raises topweight and metacentric-height concerns, so the designer must add or preserve balancing weight lower in the hull.

Destroy the landing craft and personnel carriers that deliver the force ashore, and the invasion can lose the lift it needs to continue.

Infrared paired with ASV radar would improve night search, targeting, and gunnery spotting, with likely effects in Norway, at Matapan, and during Operation C.

The ship would provoke a major Allied dispute: Britain and the United States would resist a Soviet claim, while Norway could make its own case despite uncertain ability to use her.

Flying became preferable once a sufficiently dense air-base network made it practical, although cranes remained the safer option in some circumstances.

Their 6-inch armament might be replaced or reorganized for more useful range, while their speed and numerous guns still suited anti-torpedo-boat and fleet-screening work.

Probably not: passive infrared could reveal submarines without the warning created by radar emissions or a searchlight, and the technology could also aid shipboard night sights.

A 6,000-10,000-ton increase only makes sense with a major requirement such as triple turrets, which could lead to fifteen-gun Queen Elizabeth and R-class ships and perhaps 28-knot machinery.

A German move to triple turrets would be read as a direct firepower challenge, pushing Britain toward larger guns in triple mounts to retain qualitative superiority.

A fast liner with long range is the best basis because liners could sustain speeds that strained conventional cruisers sent to escort or intercept them.

Germany would face another expensive escalation, stronger competition with the army for funding, and a British program that might grow rather than retreat.

Britain would likely build nine-gun battleships and spread the lighter, longer-ranged 15-inch/45 into rebuilt capital ships, improving performance in the Mediterranean and at Denmark Strait.

Several aircraft and ships retain theoretical minelaying capability, but practice, stockpiles, readiness, and the lack of dedicated fast minelayers make real capacity doubtful.

He would probably target a round 34 knots rather than a fractional figure; navies specify whole-knot goals even when trials produce quarter-knot results.

It could marginally improve armor efficiency and speed, but the conventional layout helped the ships blend into the existing battle line rather than stand out as priority targets.

Some enlargement would be required, but less than Germany might hope, and the investment would later make ships such as Hood and still larger wartime designs easier to support.

The idea required more defence spending and a strategic view that Britain's flanks needed protection beyond NATO's Central Front.

Finish a hull as an aircraft carrier designed to operate jet aircraft instead of completing another battleship.

Possibly; a timely and established Barracuda program could remove much of the pressure that led the Fleet Air Arm to acquire Avengers.

It might attack German targets in the North Atlantic or Tirpitz, but carrier deployment by late 1941 could place it in Operation C and create a dangerous night-torpedo threat to Japanese carriers.

He might have gained a major fleet command, but his discomfort with public speaking makes First Sea Lord unlikely.

If built with spare capacity rather than replacing battleships, they could equip Commonwealth navies and multiply fast forces in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and at Denmark Strait.

Engine substitutions had accumulated incompatible airframe changes, so the solution combined stiffening with a coherent redesign from the original structure rather than more layered modifications.

It needs range, a useful burst of speed, and cargo spaces arranged to conceal a respectable battery of roughly 6-inch guns.

The tentative answer centers on the Spearfish's planned equipment and Centaurus-engine supply while also noting Eric Brown's unfavorable assessment.

At 28 knots, Nelson and Rodney become fast battleships that change Royal Navy deployment options and could affect encounters with German capital ships.

They would be somewhat more useful and deployable, but 24-25 knots would still be too slow for carrier escort or a true fast battle line.

No; the Royal Navy deliberately expected almost every Fleet Air Arm type to carry the 100-pound anti-submarine bombs.

A triple mounting was potentially possible with a somewhat wider turret, but the fit would be extremely tight and leave poor human access even if the barbette changed little.

They would be formidable heavy cruisers and might provoke a Royal Navy response built around 9.2-inch guns.

The total capital-ship effort remains similar but shifts five hulls from battleships to battlecruisers, strengthening distant deployments and making early clashes such as Dogger Bank especially dangerous for Germany.

Its reliable detonator alone would improve on early Mark 13 and Mark 14 performance, but it would not by itself transform the war's overall outcome.

Yes; wartime demand kept multiple overlapping types in service, while American aircraft were especially easy to supply across the Pacific.

Beatty becomes a fallen hero, but a successor may reintegrate the battlecruisers more closely with the Grand Fleet and push the Admiral class toward true fast battleships.

Prince Louis of Battenberg likely remains First Sea Lord into the war, while Churchill loses Fisher's influence and the Royal Navy enters 1914 under a different senior partnership.

The entire supporting fleet would need more speed, pushing cruisers toward roughly 37 knots and forcing larger, costlier destroyers and carriers while other navies choose whether to match the advantage.

She was commissioned in time and might have participated before fully working up, but Beatty was unlikely to receive her permanently because the Grand Fleet required its own fast wing.

Some temporary ships and equipment went back to the United States, but much material was dumped, stored, or scrapped because continued postwar use created repayment obligations.

The extra Tigers would probably annihilate the German battlecruisers, while their design would reinforce the Royal Navy's shift from a dense battlecruiser toward true fast battleships.

The centerline position can improve forward coverage, but neither arrangement is universally superior; the choice depends on expected operations and desired firing arcs.

Probably not: the early Hercules added only a few hundred horsepower while nearly doubling engine weight and requiring substantial airframe reinforcement.

They would mostly replace older 13.5-inch ships in treaty calculations, but building a pre-Jutland design after 1918 would waste the Royal Navy's rich damage evidence and newer design studies.

It could become an auxiliary cruiser or carrier, but its tall passenger hull and stability characteristics make heavy battleship guns impractical.

Yes; designers paid more attention to subdivision that stopped water moving vertically and horizontally, including stronger deck-level watertight boundaries.

Its success would depend on solving development and stall-speed problems, while retaining the same engine, torpedo, bombs, and guns would limit the gain largely to modest extra speed.

Finland faced a war for national survival and needed any obtainable aircraft from an active production line, even if the type was not ideal.

A delay to roughly 1918 could bring them into service, but by then the Anglo-Russian relationship might be fraying and their value could shift from fighting Germany to deterring former partners.

The Navy was already ordering better fighters and understood that dive bombers, not level bombers, were the central fleet threat; the Roc looks more like a political concession to Air Ministry turret-fighter doctrine.

Only if planned and prepared before war; corridors, lifts, power, oxygen, medical systems, cost, and conversion time matter more than the ships' headline size.

British gunnery and night fighting would improve sharply, radar data would feed fire-control tables, and early warning could also produce primitive fighter direction.

Its range and later rocket armament would extend a carrier's anti-shipping reach and let the aircraft range widely over the Mediterranean.

October 1942 is too late in this accelerated scenario; service could begin roughly three or four months after production starts.

It would miss the November 1940 Taranto raid, but an aggressively worked-up unit could plausibly reach HMS Formidable in time for Cape Matapan in March 1941.

Albacores belonged to Victorious's intended full air group, but the new carrier sailed before that group was ready and instead embarked nine Swordfish and six Fulmars while ferrying forty-eight crated Hurricanes to Malta.

The likelier arrangement is a joint project, with OTO Melara and a British firm producing national versions of the shared design.

The treaty would need separate Dominion allowances or fail, because Britain would not force Canada or Australia to give up their ships and American attempts to treat them as separate powers would create an imperial crisis.

The first Japanese wave suffers much heavier losses because Hawaii had enough fighters to contest the attack if they were airborne in time.

British pre-dreadnoughts would slow the line, but five additional American dreadnoughts would raise the Grand Fleet to an overwhelming 42 modern capital ships against 27 German dreadnoughts and pre-dreadnoughts.

Dasher was an early American-built Avenger-class carrier whose fuel system Britain initially assumed was adequate; afterward it rebuilt the systems in every similar ship it received.

Yes; completing the planned Project 68 force would likely provoke a new Western light-cruiser generation in the 1960s, armed with a mix of 6-inch guns and missiles.

The total supports roughly four operational squadrons plus training aircraft, spares, and a group cycling through refit.

Probably three or four, ordered one at a time until the Royal Navy approached its desired capital-ship strength.

Mining wealth could support a respectable fleet, but political willingness would probably deliver mostly sloops even though cruisers and some capital-ship-scale deterrent would better match the country's needs.

The ship would be more powerful, carry more missiles, and create a cruiser lineage suited to deterrence and presence missions while encouraging foreign competitors to pursue comparable large surface combatants.

Navies would pursue underwater harbor defenses and begin thinking earlier about false bottoms, double bottoms, or protective structures around a ship's keel.

Cunningham, Jellicoe, Nimitz, Mitscher, Togo, and Yamamoto all merit consideration for fleet command, while a separate influence list would include figures such as Gorshkov, Henderson, King, Sims, Fisher, and Yonai.

Questions that change one ship or specification while leaving every surrounding institution untouched are weak; credible counterfactuals must trace effects through budgets, personnel, industry, doctrine, and rivals.

Designs did consider six-tube mountings, and a destroyer of roughly 2,500 tons could carry two sextuple launchers.

Destroyed Japanese records leave strong circumstantial cases without a surviving smoking-gun document, so a historian can label an inference on video but needs firmer proof for a book.

Britain was strained but not incapable; more carrier money existed if the government chose carriers over the V-bomber force and nuclear weapons.

Very often; German H-class and Plan Z scenarios commonly assume commissioned slips, machinery plants, labor shifts, and worked-up ships existed when much of that capacity was unfinished or only ready on paper.

A low or inverted crash attitude can make ejection lethal, while fleet sonar optimized for moving submarines is poorly suited to finding scattered aircraft wreckage on the seabed.

The Canadian ships would make an American order more likely, and U.S. design preference points toward triple 14-inch mountings.

The United States already sent cruisers into the region as part of its Neutrality Patrol, which was the practical force for the mission; a carrier such as Ranger added risk without clear need.

A British-only project would probably use existing 14- or 15-inch support capacity, most plausibly standardizing on 15 inches; a joint American project could justify a new 16-inch gun.

Britain accelerates its own gun and speed response, later capital ships grow larger, and Washington-era gun and tonnage ceilings rise enough to preserve British 16.5-inch work and encourage an 18-inch British successor.

The larger shell promised greater range, explosive effect, and room for specialized payloads, making it an attractive next step in fleet air defense.

Yes in large part, reinforced by an institutional tendency to solve demanding shipboard tasks by assigning more people.

A single escort could attack while maintaining sonar contact, causing heavier early U-boat losses and reducing the experienced crews available for the later Happy Times.

They are planning for sea-level change, water and food insecurity, and conflict driven by real or perceived scarcity, but must hedge because future operational demands cannot be known with certainty.

Navies would keep experimenting, but contemporary technology and operating experience would repeatedly show that the attractive theory performed poorly in practice.

It wanted the largest, most capable, and survivable worldwide fleet it could afford without carrying and feeding excessive crews, a goal pursued from improved sailing rigs to mechanized gun handling.

It could, but additional Patriot batteries may be cheaper and more flexible, while long-range radar remains useful for national coverage.

The description fits Squid, an effective ahead-thrown anti-submarine mortar that followed Hedgehog and was later replaced by Limbo.

Use 16-inch gunfire when the target lies within gun range because it is cheaper and highly destructive; use Tomahawk when the required stand-off distance exceeds the gun's reach.

Their gunfire would have been welcome in some coastal and delta operations, especially to Marines ashore, but the war did not require all four ships.

Lexington would become a second-generation American battlecruiser, but the United States would not overreact to only four Canadian ships and would discount their effect if maintenance remained weak.

The shell could become a very long-range weapon, with enough internal volume to add gliding surfaces and potentially even a small motor.